This article has been written to try to lead any convenor through the process of changing and adding events and interest group information on the MaD u3a website. It includes some videos to show you how it actually works, if you would like to have a printed copy or prefer written text to video please press here for a link to a PDF version in a new tab.

Each group has a page where convenors can add details about the interest group, this is fairly static information that only needs changing irregularly. Things like meeting frequency and venue are in this category.

Events are specific calendared items that, in this case, are part of your group activities and are typically only available to your members. As an aside the Trips and Visits team is treated as a group and so all their holidays and outings also become events.

First up you need to log on.

1. On the internet, enter madu3a.org/login
2. The video here shows you Sue logging on as Sue025. Everyone with access has a user ID of their forename followed by their 3-digit membership number (for me Richard001),
3. The initial password is madu3aMADU3A – this must be changed on the first login to something more secure, which only you know.
4. The video below also shows Sue changing her password.
5. We won’t know what your chosen password is and can only reset it to some gobbledygook if you forget it. – so make a note of it and keep it where you’ll find it!

6. When you’ve changed your password you won’t need to change again, although you can if you want to.

Now, let me explain ‘EVENTS‘:

Events are meetings, member gatherings, and any other relevant items that are tied to dates. Major events like General Meetings and Christmas Lunch etc are displayed on the Events page on the website,

Events that are arranged by and for specific interest groups are displayed on a specific Interest Group page. These are things like what’s happening at the next meeting(s) and anything arranged specifically for that Interest Group. In this context holidays and outings arranged by the Trips and Visits team are part of the Trips and Visits interest group, but these and theatre/cinema visits can be referenced directly from the website Events page.

The next video shows you how to set up and amend an event.

So, still logged on as Sue, we are at the dashboard screen and need to select u3a Events in the left-hand column.

OK so that’s how to add and change an event, you can replay the above video whenever you like.

So, what about Interest Groups? These are structured in a similar way to Events and you are probably only going to want to change one of your existing groups. Below is a video (without comments) of Sue changing the wording of her Breakfast Club and then Updating and Viewing the results. Again there is a matrix of mainly drop-down boxes to make it easy and consistent.

Okay, so that’s the basic stuff you’ll need as a convenor to add and edit Events and change your Interest Group entry. Congratulations if you’ve got this far, You now will be able to maintain your group’s website entry, but remember we are always ready to help and do things for you if to don’t feel confident.

For the rest of you that might have got the bug, I’ve put together some additional bits and pieces to show you how WordPress blocks work. If you master this you will be able to add and replace pictures on your Group’s site.

If you look at your Group’s page when you edit it. Each part is a block, the title, the blue bar which shows where the group details go, the text, and the yellow bar showing where the events go are all “blocks”, the text may have several blocks. If you select a piece of text a block control box will appear. It looks like this for a paragraph

The first character is the one for paragraphs, clicking the second allows you to drag it (not recommended).

The third lets you move the block up and down,

The next one allows alignment and the B and / are bold and italic respectively

The other really useful item is the 3 vertical dots which gives a drop down box that lets you delete the block.

All blocks have a similar control box

Just below the last block, you will find a white cross in a black box. You can use this to add a block. The first thing that happens if you click is you get a dropdown box like this

The system guesses what you want to do next. If you want blocks that aren’t listed there is a search at the top of the box and browse all at the bottom.

So, in this case, you could add another paragraph or an image. So if you want to add a picture just click on Image and you can upload one

So that added a picture from my hard drive, (you couldn’t see but when the upload was pressed the stem allowed a browser of media on the hard drive and subsequent selection), put it on the Playreading group’s web page, and moved it up above events.

what actually happens is that the uploaded photograph is first put into media files and then transferred to the page, You could, of course, select media directly from the media files if one had been uploaded previously.

Given this, you can see how we managed to add sundry pictures, galleries, and even Google Maps to the site.